N100, N50 flood Awka as residents rush to dispose old notes

Some banks were said to be disbursing the N100 and N50 notes to customers willing to accept them.

News Agency of Nigeria • January 28, 2023

Lower denomination naira notes [Photo Credit: Channels]

Economic and commercial activities in Awka, capital of Anambra, have slowed down due to scarcity of the newly-designed N1,000, N500 and N200 in circulation.

Customers are trooping to their banks to deposit their old currency notes to beat the January 31 deadline for phasing them out.

The correspondent who monitored the situation also reported that those going for withdrawal were not being paid with the new bills but rather with old notes, which most customers reject.

Only some banks were disbursing N100 and N50 to customers willing to accept them.

John Onu, a customer at a new generation bank near Anambra Government House, said the bank had not paid him the new bills since they were introduced last year.

Mr Onu said the bank was still paying him with old notes until early this week when the branch stopped paying.

“Now, we can not get the money we need for our transactions from the bank, though the ATMs are disbursing new notes, but most times, they are out of service,” he said.

Another customer, who wished to be known simply as Agatha, said some banks had been paying with only N100 and N50 notes, which were not affected by the redesign.

Ms Agatha said that was responsible for the resurgence of N100, N50 which used to be scarce but regretted that customers could not draw much of them because of the bulkiness and security risk involved.

She wondered why the redesigned notes were still very scarce less than a week before the expiration of the old notes.

The cost of Point of Sale (PoS) transactions has increased by between 100 per cent and 150 per cent as depositing or withdrawal of N10,000, which used to be N100, is now N200.

Customers that insist on being paid with new bills will have to part with N400 for every N10,000.

Nneka, a PoS operator, said the increase was due to the scarcity of the new notes for which they must grease palms to get at the bank.

Ms Nneka said depositing the old notes would be difficult during the week because most banks in Awka would only operate on Tuesday, January 31, the deadline for the swap.

She expressed worry that most residents still had the old notes in their possession.

(NAN)

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